


Villain Sitcom

by cobwebcorner



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Drinking Games, F/M, GCPD, Gen, Humor, Implied Relationships, Joker/Everyone, M/M, Selina was a dominatrix and I will let no one forget it, Snow, most of the rogues will show up at some point, no we do not bash the Joker around here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-06-23 14:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15608565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobwebcorner/pseuds/cobwebcorner
Summary: Drabbles and short pieces starring the rogues of Gotham. Will add characters/pairings as they appear. Expect lots of criminal shenanigans.Current entry: Even the most talented of supervillains don't have all the skills to make their harrowing death traps a reality. Fortunately, there's someone they can call for that.Or, Poison Ivy and the Carpenter have a chat.





	1. Never Have I Ever

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write anything this short, but these goblins have been running around in my head spewing out little scenes for weeks now so I figured I ought to write a few down.
> 
> I'm only going to tag a pairing if it gets a whole drabble to itself, and not just a passing mention. Main focus is probably going to be Scarecrow, Riddler, and Joker, because they're my favorites.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A game of never have I ever teaches Edward Nigma more than he ever wanted to know about the bedroom exploits of a certain homicidal clown.

"Never have I ever....slept with the Joker," Edward finished, smirking at Harley.  
  
Pouting, Harley took a shot. An awkward tension descended upon the group as, almost in unison, every person except Pamela also drank.  
  
Edward's eyes darted about the table from face to face, his smugness collapsing into confused dismay.  
  
"What--ALL of you?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Harvey?"  
  
Two Face flipped his coin. "We have our moments of weakness."  
  
"I thought you were still devoted to your wife!"  
  
"I am. This happened before I met her."  
  
"You slept with the clown while you were still district attorney?" Selina asked, eyebrows high. "How did that happen?"  
  
Harvey flipped the coin again, and grimaced at the outcome. "I got in a scuffle with him. Things. Escalated." He wouldn't say any more.  
  
"Oswald?" Edward prompted, turning to the man at Harvey's left.  
  
"Well, we used to be very good friends, you know, back in the early days. Had a few crime sprees together. Made a joint coat of arms. There's nothing wrong with a couple of friends helping each other out once in a while, am I right?"  
  
"Nothing wrong at all," Selina agreed.  
  
"Jonathan?" Edward squeaked.  
  
The self-proclaimed god of fear awkwardly cleared his throat, gaze rooted to his shot glass. "I was testing a hypothesis."  
  
"Oh. Oh-ho of course, you were doing it for _science_. And how did that study turn out, hmm? Did you get it peer-reviewed?"  
  
"It was a waste of time," Jonathan grumbled. "He was completely immune to that strain of fear toxin, and I had to do things with whoopee cushions which I wish never to experience again."  
  
"....fear toxin," Edward repeated, squinting, like he was suddenly uncertain that Jonathan understood how sex worked.  
  
Selina, by contrast, looked suddenly annoyed. "You mean you included him in _that_ experiment?"  
  
"Which experiment?" Edward demanded.  
  
"I was studying the effects of FT on someone in a euphoric state of mind."  
  
"Because nothing says 'hey honey, was it good for you too?' like a faceful of fear toxin," Selina grumbled.  
  
Edward chewed this over, mentally taking note that Jonathan and Selina had gotten together at least once. "Remind me never to sleep with you," he told Jonathan.  
  
"Please. I am well past finished with that branch of my research."  
  
Apparently satisfied, Edward cast about the table for others to interrogate. "I guess I don't have to ask you," he told Selina.  
  
"Implying something, Eddie?" she asked.  
  
"Just that your standards seem, shall we say, lax?"  
  
"I'll say. She's the only one here who lets flying rodents into her bed," Harvey growled.  
  
"No one who's slept with the Joker has any right to talk about standards," Pamela said.  
  
"How would you know? You haven't tried it," Oswald said.  
  
"And I'm never going to, thank you very much," Pamela replied.  
  
" _Anyway_ ," Selina snapped, seizing back the group's attention. "Someone has to give that man a good whipping every once in a while, or else he does over the top things like blow up kindergartens."  
  
"Thank you for that lovely, traumatizing mental image, Selina," Edward said.  
  
"You know you like it." She winked.  
  
"So..." Edward cleared his throat, reluctant to address the last member at the table. "Waylon."  
  
Killer Croc beamed at the assembled rogues.  
  
"I just have to ask. How?"  
  
"There I was holed up at this quarry, right, when Joker came nosing around. He was getting closer...and closer..."  
  
"...and?" Pamela asked.  
  
"I threw a co--"  
  
"OK, thank you, I think we all get the picture," Edward interrupted. "Thank you all for demonstrating your clown-shaped depravity."  
  
"Aww, is Eddie mad that he hasn't gotten to ride the puddin' train?" Harley asked, all false sweetness. "I bet if you asked real nice he'd let you have a go."  
  
"It works better if you open with a punch," Selina muttered.  
  
Edward flushed red. "No thank you, Harley. I have plenty of interesting romantic partners without adding your homicidal boyfriend to the mix."  
  
"Sure, Nigma. Everyone must go wild for the 'answer me these riddles three before you can take my briefs off' game," Harvey said.  
  
"Gags do exist, Dent," Selina said, making Edward turn a lurid tomato red.  
  
Waylon, meanwhile, was sulking that he hadn't gotten to finish his story. "It was a big co--"  
  
"Can we please move to the next round?" Jonathan asked.


	2. A New Chapter of Terror (Jonathan Crane & Edward Nigma)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jonathan and Edward scheme a collaboration no one would ever see coming.

“He cheated! Again!”  
  
The hideout door slammed open, admitting one very angry man in a green suit and bowler hat.  
  
For his part, the owner of said hideout—one Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow, God of Fear and former Terror of Gotham U—blinked twice and turned slowly. His colleague had made a habit lately of dropping in on him any time his upstairs light was on. Jonathan likened it to having office hours back at the university, when his brighter students used to drop by just to complain about the other dullards on the staff.  
  
“Evening, Edward,” he said. “Bat problems?”  
  
“Bird problems, which is even worse in my not-so-humble opinion.” Edward shut the door behind him, fuming. “You know what I need? A signal jammer that can keep people from looking up the answers to my brilliant riddles. The question is, how do I make sure it's in the right place when those birdbrains find one of my hints? Hmmm. I wonder if I couldn't knock out the whole city's access to the internet. That would make people pay attention.”  
  
“I'd rather you didn't, Edward,” Jonathan said. “If you disrupt my kindle service I'm spiking your food with fear toxin for the next month.”  
  
His warning appeared to fall on deaf ears. Edward was pacing back and forth around Jonathan's study, already muttering schematics under his breath. Jonathan snorted and turned back to his computer. Whatever Edward had actually come for, he would remember it eventually.  
  
"Wait a minute. That's not footage from your research." Edward paused his pacing long enough to lean over Jonathan’s chair, one hand resting on the back, and Jonathan tensed. Edward's habit of invading his personal space without warning had gotten the other man gassed with fear toxin more than once, yet he kept doing it. For all his apparent brilliance, the self-proclaimed genius was an extraordinarily slow learner. Lucky for him, Jonathan did not have his dispenser on hand, so his fingers closed reflexively on bare wrist.  
  
"It's a scarecam Let's Play," Jonathan replied, pronouncing the words slowly as if they were a foreign language. “Some teenager playing a—and I use the term loosely--'horror' game I’ve never heard of.”  
  
"Hold on.” Edward held his spread hands up, face scrunching as he tried to reconcile those words coming out of Dr. Crane’s mouth. “You know how to use YouTube?"  
  
"Edward, I am not _that_ out of touch."  
  
"You don't fool me, Jonathan. I've seen your Walkman."  
  
Jonathan’s ever-present scowl intensified. Just because he didn't throw out perfectly good technology to chase after the newest, shiniest thing didn't mean he was a complete Luddite. He just had better things to spend his limited resources on, important things, like chemicals and designer burlap.  
  
“So this is how a Scarecrow unwinds after a long day of research,” Edward mused.  
  
“It's good entertainment. Inspiring, you could say.” Jonathan smirked. “Most of these YouTube players exaggerate their reactions, but this kid is genuine. I can tell.” On the screen, a loud dissonant noise came from the game, followed by the player's startled shriek. Jonathan frowned. “Genuine, but a little too easy to spook.”  
  
“YouTubers, Jon, the correct term is YouTube—oh dear lord are those the default Unity textures? They _are_. And it's a maze! Oh ho ho, it's baby's first video game!"  
  
"I don't understand half of what you just said, but just wait until you see the 'monster' he's running from."  
  
They watched the screen together in silence. Or, near silence. Edward couldn't resist muttering negative comments about the gameplay as it progressed ("lever puzzles? really?"). That was until a slender, bony mass of distorted polygons rounded a corner, its face little more than two scribbled black eyes dripping blood. Edward bent double, laughing so hard he had to grasp the desk to keep from falling over, a complete contrast to the player who was screaming bloody murder while he fled in a panic.  Even Jonathan couldn't help a chuckle.  
  
"I-I could do better than that," Eddie gasped through his mirth, tears welling at the corners of his eyes. " _You_ could probably do better than that."  
  
"It's almost endearing how amateur it is."  
  
Edward did not respond, in fact he had frozen, his eyes gleaming with a feverish light.  
  
“We could do better,” he repeated, with an air of sudden epiphany. Jonathan favored him with a wary side glance. “Jon.” Edward clapped a hand on one bony shoulder. “What if _we_ made a horror game?”  
  
“What? Edward, you know I couldn’t program my way out of a paper bag.”  
  
“There’s more to making video games than just coding. There’s designing and scenario writing. I mean come on, you know more about what frightens people than anyone else on the planet. If you put your terrifying mind to work on some ghoulish situations, and then I programmed them to life--and I could put in puzzles that are actually worth a damn! Have you seen the kind of brain twisters these games have? Even the good ones? Oooo, congratulations, you figured out that the emblem with a sun on it goes in the slot underneath the sun decal! You get a gold star! Pah. I could put in some _real_ riddles.”  
  
“I don’t know, Edward, I am awfully busy—”  
  
“I’ll give you a cut of the profits, Jonathan,” Edward interrupted in a sing-song. “Think of all the expensive chemicals you could buy for your research. Then once it hits the big time--and believe you me, it will be big--you can watch people scream at it on YouTube to your heart’s content.”  
  
Jonathan’s fingers drummed on the armrest. He'd already had a few thoughts on the matter, just from watching these videos, passively noting which elements created a good, tense atmosphere and which were overdone. “Well,” he mused. “I suppose I could jot down a few ideas.”  
  
“Excellent. I’ll—”  
  
The window squeaked open behind them. The two turned to behold Red Robin crouching on the sill. The boy cleared his throat.  
  
“You guys gonna need a beta tester?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You will have to take game designer Edward Nigma from my cold, dead hands, world.


	3. Broadening Horizons (Jonathan Crane)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan Crane comes back to his Arkham cell only to find SOMEBODY has replaced all his beloved psychology books with some very different reading material.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not going to put the rating above teen because nothing is described in detail, but, warning for extremely purple euphemisms ahead?

Another failed heist, another stint in Arkham. It had all become quite routine by now, which was boggling in its own right. Five years ago, he would have broken into a sweat at the very idea of being incarcerated within Arkham Asylum. Still, Jonathan Crane hadn’t studied psychology all those years without growing some appreciation for the human mind’s ability to adapt.  
  
Two security guards marched him down the sterile white hall to his usual cell. They’d kept the place neat and tidy for his return, he saw, which he considered quite optimistic of them. It was gratifying to see that his furniture privileges had still not been revoked, despite his numerous escapes. His clear plastic bookshelves were all present and accounted for, their bolted shelves all fully loaded with books. He had also earned a desk and chair in addition to the usual cell furnishings of bed, sink, and toilet, by virtue of good behavior. It wasn’t easy to resist tearing apart the minds trapped within this infernal institution, but, the books were worth it.  
  
One of the guards behind him choked down a snort. He cast a suspicious glance over his shoulder. The man flashed him a grin before slamming the cell door closed, locking Jonathan in. Jonathan continued to stare through the transparent wall at them, his narrowed gaze roving from one to another, cataloging their body language. The one on the left kept a better stone face than his partner, yet both men were clearly struggling to hold back amusement.  
  
Alright. So something must be wrong with his cell.  
  
He surveyed the spartan furniture again, this time scanning for problems. The mattress appeared mold-free, and nothing unpleasant had been hidden under the sheets. The chair’s legs were all firmly attached and not likely to give way under his weight. The sink and the toilet ran without clogs. What then? The books were all still here, and--  
  
The books. He got a closer look at them, and a sharp bolt of rage turned his face hot and blanched his knuckles. His beloved psychology textbooks,  pharmacology journals, and classic novels were all gone. Someone had replaced every last tome with a Harlequin romance novel. The gilt cursive titles mocked him from a hundred pink and purple spines, boasting such vapid names as “Summer at Willow Lake” and “In the Arms of the Duke.”  
  
A gruff little chortle from the guards, “Problem, Crane?”  
  
Jonathan bristled. Now it all made sense. The staff weren’t allowed much physical contact with the inmates of the High Security Ward anymore, in large part thanks to the Joker’s antics. So the guards had found a new, more creative way to torment him.  
  
Well two could play at this game, and Jonathan would make them regret starting it at all.  
  
“Very interesting choice in reading material,” he said, plucking a book at random. _The Brookhaven Sisters: Alessa and Heather_ , it read. The second in a series, apparently. The cover featured two grinning women in billowing dresses, their heads obscured by the title.  
  
“Yeah, you know, doc was worried you’d get bored with your old books so we uh. Got ya some new ones,” the guard said, smiling openly now.  
  
Jonathan hummed, cracking open the book to the first page. “Well, since you seem so fascinated by my books, why don’t I read some of this to you?” The grins dropped right off their square faces. Jonathan savored the moment of dawning horror as he cleared his throat.  
  
_“The lady Alessa Brookhaven was far and away the most troublesome creature ever to grace the halls of Castle Windemar, vexing as she was vulpine, pale as moonlight glinting over fresh-fallen snow, with a build ferrets envied and emerald orbs that sparkled with defiance. These were the thoughts of Vincent Douglas Joseph Jasper Cunningham, third duke of Windemar, as he paced before his pianoforte in the small hours of the morning...”_  
  
The prose was every bit as perfumed and poorly constructed as he had feared, the characters were irritating, and the plot made no sense. Despite this, Jonathan did not feel his brain leak out his ears as he read. Like so many other unpleasant things in his life, the book had lost its bite once he chose to wield it as a weapon. He read on and on for hours, pausing only to take a drink now and then. The guards at their posts both looked thoroughly miserable. Smirking to himself and feeling unbearably smug about turning the tables, Jonathan flipped to the next page and then choked on air. He knew from their reputation that the book was bound to feature a sex scene sooner or later, he just hadn’t been expecting the turn the prose had taken.  
  
“Oh come on, man! Then what? Then what?” the Joker’s voice carried from all the way down the hall.  
  
“Ooooo, they’re gonna bang, aren’t they!” Harley's voice, from the other side of the hall. Arkham didn't let them room anywhere near each other ever since the pudding incident.

"For the love of god, Crane, what do I have to pay you to stop?"  Dent's voice was closer, being his next door neighbor.  
  
The pleas and encouragement both fell on deaf ears as Jonathan recomposed himself. He glanced at the guards, who stared back in challenge. Maybe they were hoping his prudishness would overcome his desire for petty vengeance.  
  
They would be disappointed. Jonathan’s capacity for petty vengeance was _bottomless_.  
  
_“....and so Vincent released the fastenings of his trousers, unveiling the,"_ he took a deep breath, _"velvet-sheathed steel that proclaimed him male.”_  
  
Pamela burst out laughing so hard she drowned out the Joker, followed by a loud thump. She must have fallen off her chair. Jonathan raised his voice, fighting to be heard over everyone. It was hard enough to parse the action of the next paragraph without having to bellow it out loud. The language made it difficult to tell, but once the clothes came off it seemed to him that the woman grew an extra head out of her backside and the man's spine had to be broken in three places to achieve the described position. It was a horrifying mental image. Maybe there was something to these books after all.  
  
_“...he leaned down to her fluttering meat curtain--”_  
  
“Jesus H. Christ,” Harvey said.  
  
_“and pressed his lips to her folds as if--”_ Jonathan broke off,  brought the book close and silently read over the next line several times. The words remained stubbornly as they had first appeared. _“...as if he were a beekeeper smoking out the bees from her honeypot?”_  
  
“...the fuck?” Edward said quietly. Pamela laughed even harder.  
  
Jonathan read on until dinner arrived, stumbling through a second, equally ridiculous sex scene and enough petty drama to suit a soap opera.  
  
“I think that’s enough for tonight,” he announced at last, clapping the book shut. The two guards sagged in relief, mouthing thanks to whatever god they still believed in.  
  
“Now hold on! I want to know what happens next!” Joker demanded. “Does James ever find his dog? Do they save the farm from the greedy alien ghosts? Will Harry get to go to Disneyland?”  
  
Only one of those things were actually related to the novel.  
  
“James is a tramp!” Harley bellowed.

“Damn right he is,” muttered Garfield Lynns.  
  
“I’m lost,” Waylon confessed. “Who’s this Dahlia woman and what’s the deal with the church?”  
  
“This is the second in a trilogy,” Jonathan offered. “They probably explained it in the first novel.” He looked at the guards, his lips twisting in a cruel smile. “Perhaps once I’ve finished this one, I could read the series from the beginning?”  
  


* * *

  
  
\--Two Days Later--

  
  
“Arkham,” Two-Face growled. “You are giving Jonathan Crane his goddamn books back and burning those awful romance novels.”  
  
“M-Mr. Dent!” Jeremiah Arkham squeaked. He had been cowering behind his desk, waiting patiently under lockdown until the latest riot resolved itself.  
  
Unfortunately for him, the security on his office was not as impregnable as he had hoped. Two-Face stood in his doorway, flipping the double-headed coin and looking mad as hell.  
  
“I’m sorry. We cannot give him the textbooks. His new therapist has decided that it’s poor for his mental health to feed into his obsessions that way.”  
  
“Then give him John Grisham or something, we don’t care. If we have to listen to one more bodice ripper,” here Dent leaned forward over the desk, making good use of every inch of his 6 foot height to loom over the asylum director, “then it’s not going to turn out well for you no matter what side the coin lands on.”  
  
“I’ll fix it,” Arkham promised him hastily.  
  
“You better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY LOOK I ACTUALLY FINISHED SOMETHING.
> 
> Nothing against romance novels, if that's your thing. They are definitely not Jonathan Crane's thing.  
> I can't take credit for the euphemisms. Those come from actual, published books.


	4. Retail Grievances (Jonathan and Pamela)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan Crane has some complaints about his local craft store's holiday display.

"Crane. Why are you sticking needles into the holly?"  
  
Jonathan looked up from his work, into the judging eyes and raised eyebrow of Pamela Isley.  
  
"It's not real holly," he defended. A flick of the wrist stashed the spent syringe up his sleeve, and he placed the fake plant back on its rack.  
  
Pamela's expression did not change.  
  
"It's October 25th, and look!" He thrust an arm out at the store aisle around them, which was dripping with glittering tinsel, glass ornaments, fancy stuffed Santas and pine wreaths. One lone rack stood out among the red and green and gold like a little gothic island, sporting a few designer pumpkins, a handful of greeting cards, and some baking molds, all with clearance tags. "Not only are they putting out the Christmas stuff already, they're clearing out the Halloween decorations."  
  
"Hmm. And this has nothing to do with the fact that their Halloween cards stole the Joker's likeness instead of yours?"  
  
"What kind of petty ego do you think I have?" Jonathan asked. "Don't answer that."  
  
"You know, every Halloween thousands of pumpkins are murdered, hollowed out, and mutilated for human amusement."

Their eyes met and held. It was always difficult for Jonathan to tell whether Pamela was earnestly feeling murderous or just complaining. Her cold face seldom changed expression, whether she was feeding a man to her giant pitcher plants or mildly reprimanding Harley for some perceived slight on plant kind.  
  
"They're a fruit, Pamela. Are they not designed by nature to be eaten, so plants can spread their seeds?"  
  
She shrugged a shoulder and turned her head, looking over the line of plastic Christmas trees.  
  
"Are you going to hit the Christmas tree ornaments?"  
  
"I had plans in that direction."  
  
"Good. Then I don't have to." Smirking coldly, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and walked away.  
  
Jonathan checked subtly for employees, then drew another syringe out from his sleeve and picked up a fancy Santa doll.


	5. The Snow Fairy (Mr. Freeze)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever else he's done, whatever he's become, Victor Freeze still loves children.

It was 20 below outside, and the wind howled so loud the noise was like a physical force. Suzy pressed her small hands to the window as she squinted through the glass, trying to make out anything through the wall of white.  
  
“Everything’s going to be okay, kids,” the bus driver called from the front, with an unconvincing smile. “We’re just a little bit stuck. They’re going to send some people in to dig us out, so be patient. Is anyone cold? I’ve got some hand warmers up here.”  
  
“Did you see that?” whispered Tiffany from the seat behind her.  
  
She hadn’t.  
  
“What? A polar bear?” asked Jim, rolling his eyes.  
  
“No, it was blue. Like blue sparks.”  
  
A sound, then, from the front of the bus: a creaking, crackling, shrill sort of sound, as of very distressed metal. The bus driver backed away, pushed kids behind him as frost climbed over the windows.  
  
The door and much of the side of the bus tore open, letting in the howling wind. Suzy shrank back from the wall of cold, curling into a ball, head ducked into her fluffy coat in her best impression of a turtle.  
  
A man appeared in the hole, blue-skinned, bald, wearing nothing but a pair of red goggles and blue swimming shorts. He was holding a ray gun that looked right out of a toy commercial in one hand.  
  
“Come, children,” he said. “I have made an escape slide down the snow bank.”  
  
“But aren’t you...” the bus driver trailed off on a gulp as the blue man turned to look at him.  
  
“Even my heart is not so cold,” he said. He stepped to one side and pointed gravely outside the bus, to a glittering slide of pure ice which led down through the whirling white. “Follow it all the way down.”  
  
No one moved for a second. Then Sarah up front yelled “slide!” at the top of her lungs and bolted forward, passed the grasping hands of the bus driver, and hurled herself down the slide. A second child followed, then a third, a fourth. Presently the bus driver gave up trying to stop them, and ordered the children into a line for the slide.  
  
When it was almost her turn, Suzy paused beside the blue man. “Are you a snow fairy?” she asked him.  
  
He stared down at her without expression, and did not respond.  
  
“Suzy, come on, it’s your turn.” The bus driver tugged on her sleeve gently. She jumped out and hurtled down the slide, crying out “wheeee!” with her arms held up all the way down. It wasn’t only a slide, it was a whole passageway made of ice, which cut all the way through the massive hill of snow to a clearing where people with snow plows and rescue workers were waiting.  
  
“What the--how did all these kids get here?” a very fat policeman was asking.  
  
“Search me, they just started popping up out of the snowbank,” replied a policewoman. “Must have been a bus stuck near here.”  
  
“We were saved by a snow fairy,” Suzy told the policeman with great authority.  
  
“Uh huh, sure kid,” the policeman said. “Renee! Get these kids to safety, hurry up, there’s a criminal on the loose around here.”  
  
Suzy looked back just once, just long enough to see the blue man vanish into the wind and snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the tumblr prompt "Blizzard" and "Mr. Freeze".


	6. The Secret Santa Wore Purple (Joker)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim Gordon does not get paid enough for this.

“Bullock, why is there a llama in my office?”  
  
“You too, commish?”  
  
“What--Did multiple people get llamas?”  
  
“I don’t know what it is. I’m kinda afraid to find out.” Bullock thrust a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the drawer in his desk that was banging and shuddering.  
  
“This is just what I need Monday morning.” Gordon approached the llama with care, slow and gentle, doing his best not to startle it. There was a silvery white gift tag hanging from a ribbon around its neck. He lifted the tag up with one finger.  
  
“Caught this one jaywalking. Put him away, chief! Heart - your Secret Santa,” Gordon read. “I thought the office Secret Santa didn’t start until the 20th.”  
  
“What bozo’s going around giving people live animals?”  
  
Gordon considered the note. The handwriting was very narrow and angular. “It’s written in green ink,” he observed.  
  
Bullock made a noise like he’d just found out every future Christmas had been canceled AND he’d gotten a parking ticket. “Not more riddle bullcrap. I thought the bat just sent him back to Arkham.”  
  
“It doesn’t sound like a riddle, but he’s gotten abstract before...” Gordon trailed off. “Did you get a card, too?”  
  
“Yeah. Here.”  
  
Bullock passed over another silvery-white gift tag, which read: “This one was in the country without a visa. Better ship him back! <3 - your Secret Santa.”  
  
“Purple ink. Hmmm.”  
  
“Could be uh...”  
  
“Yeah. Or, it could still be Riddler. Or Killer Moth.”  
  
“Doesn’t narrow it down much, does it? Half the kooks in this city use green or purple.”  
  
Half of them, sure. But not both colors together. He dropped the card on to his desk and backed away from both it and the animal, careful not to breathe anymore than he already had. Just in case. The llama eyed him with disinterest.  
  
“Whoever it is, this has ‘migraine’ written all over it,” he said as he followed Harvey out the door.  
  
Outside his office, police officers were clustered in confused groups, puzzling over the bizarre gifts that had been laid on people’s desks and chairs. Gordon approached Harvey’s desk, grabbed the shaking drawer by the handle, and eased it open. Inside, a densely furred creature with two beady eyes and a broad white stripe running down its back glared back at him.  
  
“Cripes, tell me that’s not a skunk,” Harvey said.  
  
“Nope.” Gordon shoved the drawer closed before a snapping jaw could close on his hands. “Honey badger. What else has our ‘secret santa’ left for us?”  
  
“Someone left ten boxes of donuts at the reception desk.”  
  
“I got some kind of bird here. Note says it was fishing without a permit.”  
  
“I got...the royal flush gang,” Renee Montoya announced.  
  
“What, all of them?” Gordon asked.  
  
“All of them.”  
  
“Is there a card?”  
  
“Yeah. It just says, ‘plagiarists!’, and then there’s a lot of angry faces.”  
  
“Joker,” Gordon and Harvey decided in unison.  
  
“Alright, we better get everything tested for poisons,” Gordon said.  
  
“Even the llama?” Harvey asked. “I mean, Joker’s managed some weird crap before, but...”  
  
“I’m not taking any chances. Everyone get gloves and gas masks on, and let’s round this zoo up.” He sighed. This was going to be one of those days where he wished the batsignal worked in daylight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked for the prompt "secret santa" with Joker x GCPD.
> 
> This was the result.


	7. First Snow (Waylon Jones)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waylon Jones has a tradition this time of year

If Waylon had a nickle for every heat lamp joke he got after Nov. 22nd, well, he’d need to rob a lot fewer banks, that was for sure.  
  
But, he was a reptile in skin only. His heart was as warm as anyone else’s. He hated the cold the way any human would--hated how it made his nose run, hated the painful tingles in his fingers and toes (alright, and tail), hated the ache it put in old wounds.  
  
It was a little warmer down in the sewers, with the concrete roof of the earth above holding the warm in. But tonight, he’d headed towards topside, or as close to it as he was willing to go. Tonight, the weatherman predicted the first snow fall. Some traditions he wouldn’t let fade, even if it meant braving the cold and the cops. So he found a nice quiet storm drain that he could peek up through, and waited.  
  
The weatherman was right, tonight. The first flakes fell at 10:33. His view wasn’t very good, and he had an awful crick in his neck from craning his head up, but that was alright. He did this to remember, mostly. The way his daddy laughed at his reaction the first time he saw snow. How they sat in the car for an hour, just watching it fall. It had seemed so magical, after a whole childhood in the deep south, where snow only showed up on Christmas cards.  
  
There wasn’t much left in his life that felt magical--other than those werewolf folk he didn’t like talking to.  
  
His daddy was long gone now. A few years of dealing with Gotham’s harsh winters had turned awe into hatred. Even so, every year, he came up to watch the first snow fall.  
  
And when the snow fell thick enough to pile up on the street sides, he turned around and vanished back into the damp dark of the sewers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another tumblr prompt, this one for Killer Croc and first snow


	8. Feud is Another Word for Tradition (Edward Nigma, Jonathan Crane)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward Nigma matches wits with the TRUE greatest escape artist of all time.

Edward answered the door in atypical disarray, his suit coat absent, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his hair falling from its immaculate coif. He held a wrench in one hand. His eyes had the wild look they only had when he was knee-deep in puzzle construction, and he looked ready to brain whoever had called him from his work until he registered who it was standing there.  
  
“Jonathan! Voluntarily crawling out of your comfortable barn to come visit me? Well isn’t this a reversal.” He leaned against the door frame and attempted to straighten his hair in a casual manner.  
  
“You did request a vial or two of my new formula.” Jonathan held up the briefcase in his hand.  
  
“Excellent! That is just the kick my new trap needs. Come in, come in.” He happily collected the briefcase and popped it open, smiling at the glowing orange contents.  
  
Jonathan sidled inside the safehouse and closed the door behind him, shutting out winter’s chill. He turned around to find Edward already striding down the hall, talking a mile a minute. A smile touched his face, swift and fleeting as a starling’s flight, or perhaps, a crow’s. He shrugged off his heavy twill coat and hooked it over the spot on the coat rack which was always left empty for him.  
  
“Do you have something special planned for Christmas this year?” he called as he followed Eddie through to the dining room.  
  
“Don’t I always? This is the year, Jon. The year I finally get him. He won’t slip past me this time. I’ve concocted riddles that could befuddle the Sphinx itself, puzzles so baffling Sherlock Holmes could not solve them, and traps so deadly that Houdini could not escape with his life.”  
  
“And how are you planning to lure in the Batman this time?”  
  
“Batman? Oh ho no, I’m not setting up any games for that second rate detective this year. Let Joker have the holiday. I’ve got my sights on a different enemy.”  
  
Jonathan did not need to ask who, for he had just come far enough into the house to notice the obstacle course of machinery and green question marks surrounding the fireplace. He sighed.  
  
“One day you will have to get over your feud with Santa,” Jonathan told him.  
  
“I, the Riddler? ‘Get over’ a feud? Ha! I do not walk away from a fight, Jonathan, I come in swinging again and again until I walk away the victor.”  
  
“Yes, and I’m sure your therapists at Arkham have plenty to say about that,” Jonathan muttered under his breath.  
  
“Just you wait and see, this is the year I’ll finally get that fat bastard.”  
  
“Santa’s not real, Eddie,” Jonathan said. “There’s no one to ‘get one over’ on.”  
  
“Oh, no? Then how do you explain the fact that every year, a lump of coal finds its way into my stocking, no matter how carefully I guard it?”  
  
“I don’t know, but it’s not a magical elf from the North Pole.”  
  
“You haven’t met the people I have. I heard that an alien bounty hunter once got hired to knock off Santa. He didn’t succeed, of course.”  
  
“Of course he didn’t, there’s no mark to kill. Sounds like a prank to me. Who was daring enough to send a dangerous bounty hunter on a wild goose chase?”  
  
“The Easter Bunny.”  
  
At this revelation Jonathan cackled so hard he snorted. He clapped a hand over his mouth as if that could retract the embarrassing sound, but he need not have feared. Edward did not look the least amused over his slip. In fact, he looked dead serious.  
  
“I’m dead serious, Jonathan. They’re both real.”  
  
“Oh, this is ridiculous. You’re an intelligent adult. You out of anyone ought to understand how impossible it would be for a man to actually visit every child in the world in one night. The physics of going that fast alone--he’d have burned himself and his reindeer up just from the wind resistance.”  
  
Edward folded his arms.  
  
“There is an alien in metropolis who can balance office buildings on his hands like pizza pies.”  
  
“False equivalence. Or are you trying to tell me Superman has been Santa all along?”  
  
“Hmm that’s a good point. Maybe I should add in some kryptonite. Santa is obviously a metahuman of some sort. Who knows what his weakness is?”  
  
While Edward pondered this latest twist, Jonathan buried his face in one hand, knocking his glasses askew in the process. And people really thought Edward was the more rational of the two of them.  
  
“Anyway, the setup is nearly complete. Would you like a walkthrough?”  
  
“Would it matter if I said no?”  
  
Beaming, Edward took him by the hand and led him--carefully--through the den, monologuing at length about his constructions as he went.  
  
“So it starts when he launches out from the fireplace and lands here on this pressure plate, which triggers those cage bars to descend and also trips the timer on the nerve agent dispenser over here...”  
  
Jonathan tuned out most of it, as he usually did, and instead spent his time watching Edward move. The grand gesticulations of his hands, his beaming grins, the way his eyes sparked with zeal. Belief in Santa or no, there was no doubting that this man was both intelligent, passionate, and obsessively focused--all traits which Jonathan admired.  
  
“...and then he will have to solve this 9 level version of the tower of hanoi puzzle--overdone, I know, but the real twist here is the magnet in here that will...turn his boxers inside out and paint the words ‘Jonathan Crane has the most beautifully sad eyes of any killer I’ve ever known’ on the ceiling in macaroni. You’ve stopped listening to me, haven’t you Jon.”  
  
“A few minutes ago,” Jonathan admitted. Then, because Edward was scowling at him, he added: “I don’t need to understand how it all works to appreciate your genius or your ingenuity, Edward. If I did believe in a magical jolly man from the north pole, I’m sure you’d be able to trap him.”  
  
Edward puffed up like a peacock.  
  
“It is a trap worthy of the Riddler. Maybe I’ll try it out on Batman once I’ve done away with the other pest.”  
  
And, while Edward admired his own work, Jonathan quietly slipped the lump of coal out from his pocket and deposited it into Edward’s Christmas stocking.  
  
“I should get back to my barn,” he announced. “I’ve got experiments to run.”  
  
“Oh. You don’t want to stay the night?” Edward asked.  
  
The sudden flash of something--disappointment? Dare he say, vulnerability?--caught Jonathan off guard.  
  
“Stay?” Jonathan echoed.  
  
“It is Christmas. Traditionally, one spends that time with, well, friends. Liked ones. People whose company you tolerate.” He puffed up again, shutting that glimpse of soft underbelly away behind well-practiced smugness. “And you won’t want to miss witnessing my triumph over a holiday legend.”  
  
“Ah.” Jonathan drummed his fingers on his thigh, looking back at the lone stocking which hung from the booby-trapped fireplace. Green, of course, bedazzled with rhinestones and black sequin question marks.  
  
On the one hand, his research, his birds, and his books waited for him. He cared very little about Christmas beyond its effects on the minds of Gotham. On the other hand, Edward’s place was a lot warmer, and a man with as little natural insulation as Jonathan Crane cared very much about warmth.  
  
And there was that intriguing moment of softness from Edward to probe.  
  
“I suppose.”  
  
“Excellent! I have this really wonderful eggnog from Oswald that you have to try...”  
  
As he followed Edward out of the maze of traps to the safety of the kitchen, Jonathan took his phone out and sent a covert text to Query that the deed had been done and she owed him 50 dollars.  


* * *

 

Jonathan woke the next morning to the music of Edward’s frustrated screaming. An expected result, if annoying with its timing. With a sigh he extricated himself from the warm covers and padded down the stairs to view the results firsthand.  
  
“I don’t believe this!” Edward screamed the moment he caught sight of Jonathan. “Not only did that fat bastard somehow sneak through all my traps, but he left _two_ lumps of coal in my stocking!”

 

* * *

 

"Oh hey Barbara. How was your annual mental and physical agility test?"

Barbara beamed at Dick and flashed him double thumbs up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the tumblr prompt, “One day you’ll have to get over your feud with Santa” with scriddler.


	9. And the Joker Didn't Get Away (Joker, Batman)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This year, the self-professed Chaos Santa's crime spree is thwarted by an unexpected third party.
> 
> Or, why we don't make loud noises in Gotham without making sure a very specific clown isn't nearby

If Bruce never had to listen to that butchered version of Jingle Bells again, it would be too soon. Yet there was little he could do about it at the moment, tied up as he was in some kind of Christmas sweater-straitjacket hybrid. It had bells and Santa Joker patterns all over it. It was hideous.

“...and the Jo-ker got a-waaaaaaaaay!” Joker belted out with his arms spread wide, feet together and hips canted rakishly. “Which is exactly what I’m going to do tonight, once I finish giving out the last of my presents!”

“Your secret Santa plot is finished, Joker. Gordon and his men are raiding the warehouses even as we speak. The gangs in the narrows won’t be getting those weapons.”

“Weapons?” Joker turned on his heel and clapped his hands to his cheeks in faux dismay. “Why, how could you suspect me of handing out weapons at this time of year?” A giggle wormed its way out through a crack in his facade. “Wh-why would I hand out free weapons to gangsters? Do you have any idea how much your average black market machine gun costs? I’m not made of money!”

Bruce narrowed his eyes, letting his disbelief be known.

“All your party pooper friends are going to find are some quality Christmas sweaters, just like ours.” He pinched the white knit fabric on his shoulder and stretched it upward. “A little something to keep our street friends warm on those long, cold nights of mugging and drug running.”

“What do the sweaters do, Joker.”

“Oh, what don’t they do? They light up, they play songs, they disperse poisonous gas, they dissolve in water, they make fart noises--You never know what you’re going to get! That’s the magic of Chaos Santa! (And believe me, it’s much more fun than anything you’d get from regular Santa).”

“Doesn’t sound very in line with the Christmas spirit,” Bruce said.

“What could be more Christmas-y than giving people crates of surprises in the middle of the night? I _could_ fit in some breaking and entering, I suppose.” He tapped a finger on his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t fancy getting stuck in a chimney, though. Oh! I almost forgot! There’s something extra special that _my_ sweater can do that I just have to show you.” He pressed something woven into the sleeve, and it began to emit awful electronic screeching noises, a little like a very old, music box attempting to play “deck the halls” while running out of batteries. The sound triggered a wave of explosions in the nearby park, each one in time with the music--Bruce couldn’t tell if they were destructive bombs or harmless fireworks from this angle.

“ _Hahahaha!_ Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good--”

**[!] Joker startled the mime**

 

Joker stopped hopping around mid-cackle and stared upwards, as if reading some kind of alert notification only he could see.

“I what now...?”

The rooftop door banged open. A very angry woman in clown makeup with a black mohawk charged towards them, a handgun clutched in her white-knuckled grip. Her eyes were wide and wild, fixed with singular intent on the clown in the ringing sweater.

Bruce recognized Camilla Ortin on sight, and struggled even harder to break out of his sweater-bindings. He’d slipped a batarang out while Joker was talking and was frantically sawing at the sweater.

“Ohshit!” Joker yelped and ran, bullets pinging off the concrete at his heels. “Sorrysorrysorrydidn’t mean to disrupt your evening!”

“Turn the noise off, Joker!” Bruce called.

“What do you think I’m trying to do!” Joker yelled back. He had both his hands stuffed inside his sweater and was unsuccessfully trying to run and shut off the noisemaker at the same time. In his distraction, he ran too close to the edge of the roof and tripped over the edge, vanishing from view. The mime skidded to a stop and stared down after him, nonplussed.

The final thread gave. Bruce flipped forward out of the chair, landed in a crouch, and then vaulted off the building edge without hesitation. Joker had fallen ten stories already, his spindly body spread-eagle and limbs flailing. Bruce tucked his body into a tight vertical line, reducing wind resistance as much as possible. The distance between them steadily narrowed.

“Hahaha lovely night for a fall, isn’t it darling?” Joker grinned up at him. He drew a gun out from under his sweater and aimed it upward. “Too bad you’re blocking my view.”

Bruce might have been surprised, if Joker didn’t do this _every time_. He reached out with conviction, unflinching despite the barrel of death pointed in his face. A swipe of his arm knocked the gun to one side, the other hand grabbed Joker by the Santa face near the collar of his sweater. It had been a weak effort to kill him, almost perfunctory, and the flailing punches sent his way afterward were just as half-hearted. He batted away the blows like flies, seized the Joker around his waist, and fired a grappling line into the nearest building.

The clown was still for the ride through the icy air above Gotham’s streets, clinging close to Bruce’s shoulders, catching his breath.

“How many people just died?” Bruce demanded.

“Several dozen wireframe reindeer just nobly sacrificed their lives for that display. And possibly a few squirrels. May we never forget dear Blitzenotron9000.” He sniffled, wiping away an imaginary tear.

“No one died?”

“Not for lack of trying,” Joker grumbled into his ear, and shivered a little. “Bet you’re glad you’ve got the sweater on now.”

The batsuit had thermal insulation, of course. Bruce didn’t deign to comment on this as they swung, nor on the way Joker buried his face into Bruce’s neck to hide it from the wind.

 

About half an hour later, the police would find the clown on their doorstep, securely tied up in unmistakable batcuffs and dressed in two (2) ugly Christmas sweaters.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the tumblr prompt "ugly sweaters" and "batjokes". 
> 
> I have decided that the Mime is one of the hazards of operating in Gotham. Because I like bringing back obscure characters.


	10. I'm Dreaming of a Christmas Vengeance (Poison Ivy, Jenna Duffy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last of the Gotham Rogue winter drabble requests
> 
> Even the most talented of supervillains don't have all the skills and expertise to make their harrowing death traps a reality. Fortunately, there's someone they can call for that.
> 
> Or, Poison Ivy and the Carpenter have a chat

“Alright. So you want a 60 foot tall mechanical Christmas tree frame that can hold up to twenty people per tier--”  
  
“With ornaments.”  
  
“With lights and ornaments, right, and you want each of the branches to rotate and reel inward on a timer so the occupants will have three minutes to be rescued before getting fatally crushed to death.”  
  
“With pine needles. If you can work that in. And I want it to play the most obnoxious Christmas carol you can think of.”  
  
“On this time scale? You should have called back in march.”  
  
“And I want it--”  
  
“All made out of bio-sustainable building materials with as low of an energy footprint as possible, yeah, I know. Question. Why can’t you just get your plants to grow into a death trap themselves?”  
  
“It’s the middle of winter. My babies are all asleep.”  
  
“Point. Ok then, give me a few days to think it over and draw up some ideas, and I’ll get you the first draft of blueprints by Monday.” Jenna Duffy, aka the Carpenter, supervillain death trap engineer extraordinaire, stuck her pencil behind her ear and clapped her notebook shut. “Have I ever told you you ought to design a theme park?”  
  
“I bet you say that to all the supervillains.” Pamela smiled in turn, twisting a coil of red hair around her finger.  
  
“I do, actually. Some of you are way better at it than others though. Did I tell you about the thing Harvey Dent wanted me to build last July?”  
  
“Was it a courtroom.”  
  
“It was a courtroom! And all he wanted was a trap door in the stand that led to a shark pit, with an extendable gallows that could come up above it. Like, if you want a job that simple, you might as well go to Lowe’s and do it yourself, am I right?”  
  
“Harvey’s never been the most imaginative mind. Either of them.”  
  
“Just out of curiosity, who’s this rig for?”  
  
“The employees of Rick’s Christmas Tree Co. And some city council members, if I can fit them.”  
  
“Oh, irony. Nice. Alright, talk to you Monday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, the logistics of supervillainy is one of my favorite things.
> 
> Written on tumblr for the prompt, "Christmas tree" and "Poison Ivy and friend."

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone was curious, my versions of the characters are a mixture of Batman: The Animated Series and a little bit of the older golden age/bronze age comics. Most of them aren't mass murderers, unlike their modern comic selves, and even the Joker has a more modest kill count.
> 
> I might reference things that are happening in recent comics just because they deserve sporking.


End file.
